SPS Aquila

grabcad

The following is a rendition of Facebook’s solar plane venture, Aquila, which is intended to deliver internet to people all across the world through the team at internet.org.While the design is mostly similar to the original, I added two Airbus A350 XWB winglets instead of Aquila’s standard choice. I intentionally chose Airbus’ swooping swinglet style because it enhances movement, experiences less induced drag, and thusly is more energy efficient.Likewise, I also added a drone docking station & emergency charging portal. The purpose of this mechanism is to allow lightweight service drones to hook onto the drones & portals and generally update/service the machine while it is up in the air. Considering that Aquila will be hovering around regions for 6 months at a time, this service drone mechanism allows the plane to always happen optimal energy capturing and it allows Aquila to stay up for longer times.For more information, visit http://www.spsvision.com/?p=633